The scenario I chose was the stripped down One Hour Wargame version of CS Grant's Reinforcements On Table from Scenarios For Wargames, but using a new version of A Whiff of Dice which was basically a variant of my old Hearts of Tin rules. The units were 3 stands of infantry, 2 of cavalry or light infantry or 1 gun and crew.
The game began well for the British, they marched straight up under the heavy and accurate fire of the French artillery, gave three cheers and swept the French off the hill.
I was almost ready to call it here, but..........one can never be too sure of the outcome so I tin soldiered on.
A protracted firefight ensued while the cavalry charged and countercharged indecisively. Again I was about to call it when the French commander protested. So, to be fair I carried on with the French artillery, which had pulled back before the ridge was stormed, and its fire was accurate and inflicted a heavy toll on the emigres. The balance began to even out.
Once or twice the French commander seemed set to charge the hill, but always he paused and poured more fire into the shrinking line of redcoats and then took the redcoat volleys in return. Finally, the last card went down, French initiative! "En avants mes enfants! A la bayonette pour la republique!"
(Hopeless I thought, they'd need to roll a handful of 5's and 6's AND have the British falter and threw low. What were the odds?)
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| "Save the Colours!!" |
My first impression was that the rules had worked well enough but the stand removal, a deep seated habit, was thinning the lines too quickly and spoiled the look with single stands representing a whole battalion as stands were removed making it look that the battalions were taking 75% casualties in minutes but remaining steady. It didn't look right and distorted the tactical picture. I decided to rework it so that battalions could stay on table until they broke. Of course you can't just change one little thing without a cascade of side effects....... It was mid afternoon before I was ready to test the rules again but that's for tomorrow's post!
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For those who missed yesterday's pic, here it is again to show the table during the early turns:
To be continued!
I assume that the British were led by the grand, old, Duke of York as they assaulted the hill?
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
One can only hope they weren't!
DeleteIt looks lovely. I increasingly dislike stand removal as you up with lots of little units running around it looks silly. I just track lost stands with a marker or something instead. It means all those figures stay on the table a bit longer.
ReplyDeleteYeahup. Knocking over individual figures and leaving them lie on the table is one thing, the bodies tell their own tale, but vanishing stands just looks wrong, unless you have 6 or 8 small stands and maintain the unit frontage somehow, a unit tray or something. OK for 15's but....
Delete